Another WOW! What a great hotel and an amazing city. We are truly loving it. Diana was initially uncomfortable about
staying in such a big posh hotel located at a place called Nob Hill but the
Fairmont on Mason Street is truly tastefully spectacular and very
comfortable. We have a lovely room, great
bathroom, luxurious robes and comfortable bed.
It is easy to get to places and on arrival we asked where we could
purchase another photo reader to upload our photographs onto the computer [the
one we had stopped working and we were frustrated at not being able to share our
Las Vegas, Death Valley and Yosemite photographs on world nomads] and duly
walked down to Walgreens to find that they didn’t have one so had to walk much further
to the Radio Shack and duly purchased one.
We had walked all the way
down from Nob Hill through Union Square and down to the bottom of Market
Street. You’ve seen the pictures on the
TV of the roads which slope steeply and undulate, well we walked down and
everything which goes down needs to go back up so we set off walking and after
a while Diana said ENOUGH! Let’s look
for somewhere to eat. Malcolm, ever the
traditionalist wanted to go back to the hotel, get washed and changed and come
out again, Diana for once was not prepared for that to happen and persuaded
Malcolm that we could eat out without going through that rigmarole. He gave in, thank goodness, and after going
past pizza places, burger places, he spotted John’s Grill and we went to have a
look.
What a find, it is the
home of the Maltese Falcon [the author’s society has set up home here] and the
food was amazing in such a classic setting. It was great to have such a delicious meal after
the offerings at Yosemite, apart from the Wawona Hotel that is. It got very busy after half an hour so was
clearly a popular choice.
It was an easier walk
than expected all the way back up the hill.
The final two sections are really steep but we made it quite easily and
were delighted to flop back into the bedroom and watch the TV; something we
hadn’t done for 4 weeks and guess what was on, a CSI, which of course Diana had
to watch; Malc went to sleep, rather noisily, upright in the Chair.
The following day we walked all the way down to Union Square and attempted to determine which would be the best bus tour to take but couldn't make up our mind so decided to walk to Fisherman's Wharf which we did, the long way round!
We had a delicious lunch on the waterfront and then walked on to Pier 39 and spent time people watching and seal watching. We were keen to experience a tram ride so queued to get a tram ride back to the Ferry Terminal in order to catch a cable car up to the top of the hill. What fun. We had to wait ages for the tram to arrive and eventually 2 full ones past before we squeezed onto one. We misjudged where to get off but only had a short walk before we hauled ourselves onto a cable car to take us up the road -up 't top 't 'ill as we say in Yorkshire. Again we jumped off a stop too soon but were soon back in our lovely hotel.
We enjoyed the Bay area enormously and may take a trip on the water tomorrow.
